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when miles leaves his room that night, hands still shaking, he pulls out his phone just to discover he’d almost run out of battery. not only that, but he was still recording.
he hits stop.
miles leans back against a wall. there, on the screen, the new video’s preview shows peter parker, still alive, still breathing.
he hits play. he holds his breath.
he could’ve saved him. but instead he’d run, and kingpin had—
miles’ video reaches until just before the explosion. after that it’s stuffed into his pocket, and all there is is darkness and sounds.
“do you really hate spider-man?,” miles’ voice asks. he sounds so small. he feels so small.
“well,” his dad goes. miles bites his lip.
would you hate me if i were spider-man?, was what he really wanted to say. would you hate me if i’d killed spider-man?
he shoves the phone back into his pocket and tries to steel himself.
it doesn’t work very well. but he has to pretend it does if he wants to stop the collider and make peter parker, the 26 year-old martyr, proud.
peter’s not too into this world's rules, not yet, but there’s a certain hesitation within miles that makes him frown. sure, he’s peter parker. sure, his counterpart died just days ago. he writes it off as miles just being scared of what’s going on, even though he doesn’t act like that with gwen, peni or ham.
it’s probably nothing, he thinks. probably.
five months after the collider, miles calls him.
it’s three in the morning. and on a weekend no less.
peter almost groans. he leaves the room; doesn’t want to wake up mj. then, he answers.
“hey miles,” he says. “what’s so important it couldn’t wait until at least noon?”
and then he takes a look at miles.
he’s staring through him, through the portal, like he’s not even there.
“miles?” peter frowns. “you good?”
and miles blinks. he’s blinking too much. his voice is too breathy. “yeah,” he says. “yeah, i’m— i just called on accident, don’t worry—“
“do you want me to come?”
“no, i’m fine,” miles snaps.
“okay? i’m coming anyway.”
“i told you i’m okay—“
miles is sitting on his school’s roof, there’s spilled cereal (knock-off frosties, smells like) on the concrete floor, and a cracked cellphone playing peter parker’s broken voice on a loop.
“miles,” peter says, breathless, “what the fuck.”
peter watches the video through the broken screen.
he took the phone away from miles after he made sure he’d be okay.
“ ah, that’s a no-no, ” the peter in the video says. he coughs. peter hears as the prowler ( miles’ uncle ) steps forward, before peter says something and fisk himself delivers the final blow.
he stops the video, feeling sick to his stomach.
“why do you still have this?”
peter tries to keep his voice as steady as possible. miles doesn’t even try.
“i’m the only one who was there,” he says. “i want to show someone, but i’m scared they’ll want to know who i am.” there’s words unspoken lingering in the air: i want there to be justice for peter.
peter sighs. “you could show your dad. your face isn’t in the video.”
miles doesn’t look at him. “i guess.”
peter goes home, lays down next to mj again. he thinks about the video. he thinks about peter parker’s bloody remains, about the cracks in the concrete underneath; he thinks about miles, just a few steps away from certain death.
he doesn’t get any sleep that night.
“hey, officer?”
officer davis looks at spider-man, his dark silhouette unusually still. they’re wrapping up on a thwarted robbery, and usually the kid (because he’s certainly a child, young and naive and so much like peter parker yet nothing like him; maybe at the beginning he could’ve fooled him but not now, not anymore) would have gone off by now. saluted a “love you, officer” and swung away into the hearts of the city, its twisting streets and rising buildings, leaving jefferson to worry about him, late at night.
but not this time. the kid stands there, shifting in place, as if still thinking whatever this is through.
“yeah, spider-man?” it feels weird calling him that. he can’t be older than sixteen.
the hero looks away from him. he sees the lenses on his mask shrink and widen and his shoulders straighten: he’s made his choice. “what’s wrong?”
“i need—” he takes a deep breath, stares at his hands; closes them and sighs. “there’s something i have to show you,” he says.
he isn’t expecting this.
spider-man, see, he doesn’t show anyone anything — not to his knowledge. he’ll say hi, sure, he’ll stop by food stands when it’s late and he hasn’t eaten dinner, he’ll breeze past handing out high fives and rescuing babies from burning buildings, but he never lingers for too long in one place, even less around cops. maybe he’s afraid of discovery, of revealing who he is; maybe he’s afraid someone will try and stop him. maybe he’s afraid someone actually can.
so when spider-man leads him to a back alley, he’s not sure what he’s waiting for. but the boy sits on top of an empty garbage container and fishes out a flash drive from… somewhere. he isn’t exactly sure where.
“okay,” he says, maybe to himself. he’s not doing that thing where he pretends he’s older by lowering his voice or putting on a fake accent. “okay, this is it.”
he’s not sure what he expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.
it wasn’t a nervous mess of a kid trying to put on a brave face.
“kid, what’s going on?” he’s getting worried. he’s awfully quiet, he’s obviously scared. no, this isn’t about his identity. it’s something else.
“officer, when i— the night peter died,” spider-man says. “when peter died, i was there.”
he pushes the flash drive onto his hands. (his hands are shaking. officer davis won’t tell.)
“i was recording. it— it wasn’t the earthquake that— that he—” (spider-man’s breathing funny. he pockets the flash drive and holds him steady, grounds him.) “i’m sorry, i should’ve said something sooner, i’m just—”
“hey, it’s okay,” he reassures him. “thank you for telling me this. i’ll see what we can do with this, i promise.”
“okay,” spider-man says. he sounds so small. “thank you.”
in the flash drive there’s only one file. it’s a video archive with just a few numbers as title; it’s the day peter parker died.
he’s not sure what he expected.
he double-clicks it, waits for it to load.
his breath catches in his throat. there’s the super collider, just turning on for the very first time. there’s spider-man, the first one, (the dead one,) swinging his way to the top, twirling and twisting through the air, and he can hear the new spider-man’s voice gasp, amazed. he knows it’s the new spider-man. he could recognize it anywhere, now.
peter parker’s suddenly struck down; it’s the prowler, and then it’s the green goblin, and then a voice booms through the air. the camera, all shaky, doesn’t quite catch who it is, but he gets the feeling he already knows.
“ you’re going to kill us all! ,” peter parker screams. and he manages to escape, just for a bit, tries to swing up again — there’s a panel there, jefferson notices now — but the green goblin grabs him before he can, inches from the green button, and slams him against the dimensional beam.
spider-man screams. and the world collapses.
the new spider-man picks up his phone again. shoves it into his pocket, stands up in a hurry and breaks into a light sprint. his steps are soundless through the rubble. he pauses for a moment, before gasping; his steps quicken and then there’s a shuffle.
“ hey! are you okay? ” the new spider’s voice is barely a whisper.
“ i’m fine ,” peter parker replies. his voice is low, too, but davis gets the feeling it’s not on purpose. “ i’m fine. just resting. ”
“ can’t you get up? ”
peter laughs, softly. jefferson knows what’s coming. perhaps he knew too, back then. “ yeah, yeah I always get up… ” he coughs. it’s a dry wheeze, too loud. there’s steps, far away from them. (damn, that’s a good microphone.) “ the coughing’s probably not a good sign. ”
the noises get louder, and peter’s words are urgent. “ listen, we gotta team up here, we don’t have that much time... this override key is the only way to stop the collider. swing up there, use this key, push the button, and blow it up. easy. you can do it.
“ you need to hide your face. you don’t tell anyone who you are. no one can know. he’s got everyone in his pocket— “
“ what? ”
“ if he turns the machine on again, everything you know will disappear. your family, everyone — everyone . promise me you’ll do this. ”
there’s this long, unbearable silence, and the steps are getting closer, and god, peter parker is going to die any second now.
and then the new spider-man says, “ i promise .”
he can practically hear peter’s pride. peter’s pain. “ go! ,” he says. “ i’ll come and find you... it’s going to be ok. ”
the voice gets away. the new spidey’s running again, climbing on something hollow, but then he stops. he can hear something.
it’s the kingpin’s voice again. he’s not alone; there’s multiple footsteps, and jefferson can only think of spider-man’s battered body, of young peter parker all alone, surrounded by his worst enemies, at the end of his life.
“ it’s not going to work ,” peter says.
there’s a moment of quiet.
and then a sickening crack.
“ get rid of the body, ” wilson fisk says.
there’s another shuffle, and then the video ends.
officer davis didn’t know what he’d expected, but it certainly wasn’t this.
“good evening, we’ve got breaking news.”
miles isn’t paying much attention to the news broadcast as he swings through the city. it feeds directly into his mask, thanks to ganke’s work. god he loves ganke. he does a twirl through the air, feels the breeze through his suit; the chilly breeze grounds him, makes him feel safe.
thwip. the voice of the news reporter melts in with the city’s noises. thwip, release. thwip. you’re a natural. her words don’t make much sense to him.
thwip. she mentions peter parker. he almost misses the next swing. he decides to crash for a while on a lonely rooftop, just in time to hear his dad’s voice through the tv.
“we received a video recording from an anonymous source a few days ago,” he hears his dad say, “and we have enough evidence to believe wilson fisk was responsible for the death of peter parker.”
miles doesn’t move. he doesn’t register anything else they say. after a while (after he’s managed to calm down his breathing a bit, to stop shivering like a leaf just before a storm) he sprints off the building and extends his arm. thwip.
people are looking at him. thwip. people always look at him.
the video isn’t online, not that night, but someone manages to leak it, and soon, everyone knows it was spidey 2.0. soon, everyone knows: he didn’t save peter.
don’t let it consume you, peter b. had told him. brush it off like you’re made of steel. and he tries, he really does, and for a while it works.
then, one night, he’s chilling through queens, taking a sorta-break, when someone yells, “you left him for dead!”
spider-man vanishes for three days. he doesn’t stop thinking about those words for weeks.
the chilly breezes don’t make him feel as safe now.
“did you delete it?,” peter asks him.
miles nods. “yeah,” he says. he shows him his phone; indeed, the video is no longer there. not even in the recently deleted folder.
“good.”
miles feels guilty. the video file haunts him, safely stored into his laptop, every time he turns it on.
but he doesn’t tell anyone.
spidey stands, all alone, in the middle of the graveyard. surrounded by tokens, masks, flowers, he stands; he’s not as small as he once was, but he still is pretty young, pretty small. the snowfall makes him look serene, somehow.
there’s a long, green coat over his shoulders, like someone had put it on him, and for a moment davis isn’t sure he should be here at all. ever since that day, months ago, they haven’t seen each other as much. barely talked beyond the “bye, officer”s. but he steels himself and keeps walking forward.
spidey stands, all alone, in front of peter parker’s grave. it’s been a year.
“it’s a school night,” he says. he watches as spider-man’s shoulders sag. “you shouldn’t be out this late, spidey.”
he doesn’t reply. he barely turns to look at him.
“do you want some hot chocolate? my treat.”
the kid doesn’t move. “i just wanna be alone for a while.”
“well, i’m not having that,” davis says. “come on, it’s cold outside.”
“why do you even talk to me?” spider-man’s voice is shaking, now. it doesn’t crack like it used to. it’s thicker, more mature, but the words it says are just as frail as ever. “you know what i did to him.”
“yeah, nothing. you listened to him. and then you saved brooklyn.” jefferson stuffs his hands in his pockets. “it’s not your fault.”
“i could’ve saved him!” spidey’s crying, he’s sure of it. under the mask there’s very few things he can hide from him. “i could’ve, and i didn’t.”
“you didn’t have that responsibility, kid.”
they don’t move, for a while. spider-man crouches by peter’s grave and puts a hand on the gravestone.
“he’d have been proud of you,” davis says.
he can tell spidey doesn’t believe him, not yet, but as they head out of the graveyard, jefferson davis finds he doesn’t need him to right now.
spidey doesn’t have to stand alone.